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CAS LX 522
Syntax I
Episode 4a. Binding Theory, NPIs, ccommand, ditransitives, and little v
4.3-4.4
A phrase

maximal
projection
maximal
projection
A full phrase can
have all of these
pieces
(plus perhaps some
additional adjuncts)
XP
XP
specifier
minimal
projection
head
[X, …]
adjunct
X
complement
intermediate
projection
Complements vs. adjuncts

PPs seem to be freely reorderable— when they are
adjuncts.






But consider glance at Chris.



I ate lunch on Tuesday at Taco Bell with Pat
I ate lunch on Tuesday with Pat at Taco Bell
I ate lunch with Pat on Tuesday at Taco Bell
I ate lunch on Tuesday with Pat at Taco Bell
etc…
I glanced at Chris on Tuesday
*I glanced on Tuesday at Chris
Ok: Why?
Binding Theory

Binding Theory consists of three Principles
that govern the allowed distribution of
NPs.

Pronouns: he, her, it, she, …
Anaphors: himself, herself, itself, …
R-expressions: John, the student, …


R-expressions and anaphors

R-expressions are NPs like Pat, or the
professor, or an unlucky farmer, which get their
meaning by referring to something in the world.
Most NPs are like this.

An anaphor does not get its meaning from
something in the world—it depends on
something else in the sentence.


John saw himself in the mirror.
Mary bought herself a sandwich.
Pronouns

A pronoun is similar to an anaphor in that it
doesn’t refer to something in the world but
gets its reference from somewhere else.
John told Mary that he likes pizza.
 Mary wondered if she agreed.


…but it doesn’t need to be something in
the sentence.

Mary concluded that he was crazy.
The problem

There are very specific configurations in which pronouns,
anaphors, and R-expressions can/must be used. Even
though both he and himself could refer to John below, you
can’t just choose freely between them.
 John saw himself.
 *John saw him.
 John thinks that Mary likes him.
 *John thinks that Mary likes himself.
 John thinks that he is a genius.
 *John thinks that himself is a genius.

The question Binding Theory strives to answer is: When
do you use anaphors, pronouns, and R-expressions?
Indices and antecedents

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Anaphors and pronouns are referentially
dependent; they can (or must) be coreferential with another NP in the sentence.
The way we indicate that two NPs are coreferential is by means of an index, usually a
subscripted letter. Two NPs that share the
same index (that are coindexed) also share
the same referent.
Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.
Indices and antecedents

Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.

An index functions as a “pointer” into our mental
model of the world.
John here is a name that “points” to our mental
representation of some guy, John, which we notate
by giving the pointing relation a label (“i”).
himself here shares the same pointing relation, it
“points” to the same guy John that John does.
So, any two NPs that share an index (pointing
relation) necessarily refer to the same thing.



Indices and antecedents

Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.

The NP from which an anaphor or pronoun
draws its reference is called the
antecedent.

John is the antecedent for himself. John
and himself are co-referential.
Constraints on co-reference
Johni saw himselfi.
 *Himselfi saw Johni.
 *Johni’s mother saw himselfi.


It is impossible to assign the same referent
to John and himself in the second and
third sentences. What is different between
the good and bad sentences?
John’s mother

John’s mother is an NP.
[John’s mother]i saw herselfi.
 She saw John.

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But it’s an NP that is made up of smaller pieces
(John’s and mother).

So what is the internal structure of the NP
John’s mother?
[NP John’s mother]

Remember that pronouns come in three
distinguishable forms (in English):




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I, he, she
Me, him, her
My, his, her
nominative
accusative
genitive
The genitive case forms seem to have pretty
much the same kind of “possessive” meaning
that John’s does.
So, let’s suppose that John’s is the genitive case
form of John.
[NP John’s mother]

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Another point about John’s mother is that it
seems that the head should be mother.
John’s sort of modifies mother.
Sort of like an adjective does… sort of like an
adverb does for a verb…
Let’s suppose (for now! In chapter 7 we’ll revise
this) that John’s is just adjoined to the NP
mother.

(Hard to draw clearly)
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
Binding

What is the difference between the
relationship between John and himself in
the first case and in the second case?
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Binding

We think of the position that John is in in the first
tree as being a position from which it “commands”
the rest of the tree. It is hierarchically superior in a
particular way.
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Tree relations

A
B
C
D
E
A node X c-commands its
sisters and the nodes
dominated by its sisters.
Tree relations

A
B
C
D
E

A node X c-commands its
sisters and the nodes
dominated by its sisters.
B c-commands C, D, and E.
Tree relations

A
B
C
D
E

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A node X c-commands its
sisters and the nodes
dominated by its sisters.
B c-commands C, D, and E.
D c-commands E.
Tree relations

A
B
C
D
E



A node X c-commands its
sisters and the nodes
dominated by its sisters.
B c-commands C, D, and E.
D c-commands E.
C c-commands B.
Binding

So, again what is the difference between
the relationship between John and himself
in the first case and in the second case?
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Binding

In the first case, the NP John c-commands
the NP himself. But not in the second case.
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Binding

When one NP c-commands and is
coindexed with another NP, the first is said
to bind the other.
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Binding

Definition: A binds B iff
 A c-commands B
 A is coindexed with B
“if and only if”
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Binding

Principle A of the Binding Theory (preliminary):
An anaphor must be bound.
*
VP
NP
NP
NPi
John’s mother
VP
NPi
John
V
V
saw
NPi
himself
V
V
see
NPi
himself
Principle A

This also explains why the following
sentences are ungrammatical:
*Himselfi saw Johni in the mirror.
 *Herselfi likes Maryi’s father.
 *Himselfi likes Mary’s fatheri.

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There is nothing which c-commands
and is coindexed with himself and
herself. The anaphors are not bound,
which violates Principle A.
Binding domains

But this is not the end of the story; consider
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*Johni said that himselfi likes pizza.
*Johni said that Mary called himselfi.
In these sentences the NP John c-commands
and is coindexed with (=binds) himself,
satisfying our preliminary version of Principle
A—but the sentences are ungrammatical.


John didn’t say that anyone likes pizza.
John didn’t say that Mary called anyone.
Binding domains
Johni saw himselfi in the mirror.
 Johni gave a book to himselfi.
 *Johni said that himselfi is a genius.
 *Johni said that Mary dislikes himselfi.

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What is wrong? John binds himself in
every case. What is different?
In the ungrammatical cases, himself is
in an embedded clause.
Binding domains

It seems that not only does an anaphor need to
be bound, it needs to be bound nearby (or
locally).

Principle A (revised):
An anaphor must be bound in its binding
domain.
Binding Domain (preliminary):
The binding domain of an anaphor is the
smallest clause containing it.
Pronouns
*Johni saw himi in the mirror.
 Johni said that hei is a genius.
 Johni said that Mary dislikes himi.
 Johni saw himj in the mirror.

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How does the distribution of pronouns
differ from the distribution of anaphors?
It looks like it is just the opposite.
Principle B

Principle B
A pronoun must be free in its binding domain.
Free
Not bound


*Johni saw himi.
Johni’s mother saw himi.
Principle C

We now know where pronouns and
anaphors are allowed. So what’s wrong
with these sentences? The pronouns
are unbound as needed for Principle B.
What are the binding relations here?

*Hei likes Johni.
*Shei said that Maryi fears clowns.
Hisi mother likes Johni.

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Principle C
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Binding is a means of assigning reference.
R-expressions have intrinsic reference;
they can’t be assigned their reference from
somewhere else.
R-expressions can’t be bound, at all.
Principle C
An R-expression must be free.
Binding Theory

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
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Principle A. An anaphor must be bound in its
binding domain.
Principle B. A pronoun must be free in its
binding domain.
Principle C. An R-expression must be free.
The binding domain for an anaphor is the
smallest clause that contains it.
Bound: coindexed with a c-commanding
antecedent (Free: not bound).
Constraints on interpretation


Binding Theory is about interpretation.
Only a structure that satisfies Binding
Theory is interpretable.
pronounce
Lexicon
Merge
Workbench
interpret
Constraints on interpretation

If we put together a tree that isn’t
interpretable, the process (derivation) is
sometimes said to crash.
pronounce
Lexicon
Merge
Workbench
interpret
Constraints on interpretation

If we succeed in putting together a tree
that is interpretable (satisfying the
constraints), we say the process
(derivation) converges.
pronounce
Lexicon
Merge
Workbench
interpret
Negative Polarity Items

Certain words in English seem to only be
available in “negative” contexts.
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Pat didn’t invite anyone to the party.
Pat does not know anything about syntax.
Pat hasn’t ever been to London.
Pat hasn’t seen Forrest Gump yet.
*Pat invited anyone to the party.
*Pat knows anything about syntax.
*Pat has ever been to London.
*Pat has seen Forrest Gump yet.
Negative Polarity Items


These are called negative polarity items.
They include ever, yet, anyone, anything,
any N, as well as some idiomatic ones like
lift a finger and a red cent.
Pat didn’t lift a finger to help.
 Pat didn’t have a red cent.
 *Pat lifted a finger to help.
 *Pat had a red cent.

Licensing

NPI’s are only allowed to appear if there’s a negative
in the sentence.


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John didn’t invite Mary to the party, did he?
John didn’t invite anyone to the party.
John invited Mary to the party, didn’t he?
*John invited anyone to the party.
Nobody invited Mary to the party, did they?
Nobody invited anyone to the party.
We say that negation gives them “license to appear”:
NPI’s are licensed by negation in a sentence.

Just like you need a driver’s license to drive a car (legally),
you need negation to use a NPI (grammatically).
Any

Just to introduce a complication right away, there is a
positive-polarity version of any that has a different
meaning, known as the “free choice any” meaning. This
meaning is distinguishable (intuitively) from the NPI any
meaning, and we are concentrating only on the NPI any
meaning—for now, we will just consider any to be
ambiguous, like bank.

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John read anything the professor gave him.
Anyone who can understand syntax is a genius.
In fact, there are a couple of things other than negation
that license NPIs, though we’ll ignore them for now.

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Pick any card.
Did anyone bring cake?
Negative Polarity Items

But it isn’t quite as simple as that. Consider:
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I didn’t see anyone.
*I saw anyone.
*Anyone didn’t see me.
*Anyone saw me.
It seems that simply having negation in the
sentence isn’t by itself enough to license the use
of an NPI.
Negative Polarity Items

As a first pass, we might say that negation
has to precede the NPI.
I didn’t see anyone. Nobody saw anyone.
 *Anyone didn’t see me. *Anyone saw nobody.

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But that’s not quite it either.

*[The picture of nobody] pleased anyone.
Negative Polarity Items
*[The picture of nobody] surprised anyone
 Nothing surprised anyone

VP
VP
NP
The picture of nobody
V
V
surprised
NPi
V
nothing
V
NPi
suprised anyone
NP
anyone
Giving trees to ditransitives

You may recall our
discussion of q-theory, where
we triumphantly classified
verbs as coming in three
types:


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Intransitive (1 q-role)
Transitive (2 q-roles)
Ditransitive (3 q-roles)
Theta roles go to obligatory
arguments, not to adjuncts.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Giving trees to ditransitives

You may also recall that we
believe that trees are binary
branching, where:

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Syntactic objects are formed
by Merge.
There’s just one complement
and one specifier.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Giving trees to ditransitives


Fantastic, except that
these things just don’t fit
together.
We know what to do with
transitive verbs.
VP
SUB
V

But what do we do with
ditransitive verbs? We’re
out of space!
V
OBJ
Problems continue…



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I showed Mary to herself.
*I showed herself to Mary.
I introduced nobody to anybody.
*I introduced anybody to nobody.
This tells us something about the
relationship between the direct and toobject in the structure. (What?)
Problems continue…


The OBJ c-commands the PP.
But how could we draw a tree
like that?
Even if we allowed adjuncts to
get q-roles, the most natural
structure would be to make the
PP an adjunct, like this, but that
doesn’t meet the c-command
requirements.
VP
*
V
SUB
V
V
PP
OBJ
Some clues from idioms

Often idiomatic meanings are associated with
the verb+object complex—the meaning derives
both from the verb and the object together.

Suppose that this is due being Merged into the
structure together initially.


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Bill threw a baseball.
Bill threw his support behind the candidate.
Bill threw the boxing match.
Idioms in ditransitives

In ditransitives, it seems like this happens with
the PP.
Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to the world.
 Beethoven gave the Fifth Symphony to his patron.
 Lasorda sent his starting pitcher to the showers.
 Lasorda sent his starting pitcher to Amsterdam.
 Mary took Felix to task.
 Mary took Felix to the cleaners.
 Mary took Felix to his doctor’s appointment.

So V and PP are sisters…

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Larson (1988) took this as evidence that
the V is a sister to the PP oringinally.
Yet, we see that on the surface the OBJ
comes between the verb and the PP.


Mary sent a letter to Bill.
Where is the OBJ? It must c-command
the PP, remember. Why is the V to the left
of the OBJ when we hear it?
V
V
PP


Where’s the V? Where’s the
OBJ?
We can paraphrase John gave a book to Mary as
John caused a book to go to Mary.
Chichewa:



Mtsikana ana-chit-its-a
kuti mtsuku
u-gw-e
girl
agr-do-cause-asp that waterpot agr-fall-asp
‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’
Mtsikana anau-gw-its-a
kuti-mtsuku
girl
agr-fall-cause-asp that waterpot
‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’
Suppose that in both cases Merge puts things
together in the same way initially:

[[that waterpot] fall]
Causatives




[cause [[that waterpot] fall]]
And then it’s Merged with the Agent


[[that waterpot] fall]
Then it’s merged with cause (basically transitive: needs a
causer and a causee):


Mtsikana ana-chit-its-a
kuti mtsuku
u-gw-e
girl
agr-do-cause-asp that waterpot agr-fall-asp
‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’
Mtsikana anau-gw-its-a
kuti-mtsuku
girl
agr-fall-cause-asp that waterpot
‘The girl made the waterpot fall.’
[girl [cause [[that waterpot] fall]]]
At which point, one can move fall over to cause.

[girl [cause+fall [[that waterpot] <fall> ]]]
Ditransitives again


The proposal will be that English ditransitives are really a lot
like Chichewa causatives.
One moves fall over to cause to get:


Starting with


[[the book] [go [to Mary]]
Merging cause and an Agent


[girl [cause+fall [[that waterpot] <fall> ]]]
[John [cause [[the book] [go [to Mary]]]]]
One then moves go over to cause to get:


[John [cause+go [[the book] [<go> [to Mary]]]]]
John “gave” the book to Mary.
Where’s the V? Where’s the
OBJ?

Larson’s proposal was basically this.
Logically, if we’re going to have binary
branching and three positions for
argument XPs (SUB, OBJ, PP), we need
to have another XP above the VP.
vP


Since the subject is in the specifier of the
higher XP, that must be a VP too.
Ditransitive verbs really come in two
parts. They are in a “VP shell” structure.
SUB
v
v
VP
OBJ

Furthermore, the higher part seems to
correlate with a meaning of causation.
V
V
PP
Where’s the V? Where’s the
OBJ?

The higher verb is a “light verb” (we’ll write it
as vP to signify that)—its contribution is to
assign the q-role to the subject. The lower
verb assigns the q-roles to the OBJ and the
PP.

That is, V has [uP, uN] features,
and v has a [uN] feature.

Hierarchy of Projections (so far):


v>V
“V comes with v”
vP
SUB
v
v+V VP
OBJ
V
<V> PP
Exercise to ponder

Young kids (5-6 years) seem to accept sentences like (1)
as meaning what (2) means for adults.



(1) Mama Bear is pointing to her.
(2) Mama Bear is pointing to herself.
Suppose that contrary to appearances, kids do know and
obey Principle B. Look carefully at the definitions of
Binding Theory. If Principle B isn’t the problem, what do
you think kids are getting wrong to allow (1) to have the
meaning of (2)?

Think in particular about how you decide which index to assign
to her. What is the implication of having the same index? What is
the implication of having different indices?
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